As a young boy searches for answers, he is aided by an unlikely individual in this modest and affectionate take on an intergenerational friendship, combining droll humour and neorealism.
A charming, often comic tale of love, loss and loneliness around a solitary woman and her two temporary lodgers.
Flies 2026
Moscas
Olga (Teresa Sánchez, Tótem) enjoys her life of solitude in an apartment block in Mexico City. When she runs into financial hardship, she reluctantly rents her spare room to an out-of-towner who wants to be close to his wife who is undergoing chemotherapy. Unbeknownst to Olga, Tulio (Hugo Ramírez) is sneaking his son into the flat, a well-meaning yet naive nine-year-old, Cristian (Bastián Escobar). Despite her initial reservations, Olga forms a bond with the boy when their lives intersect in a surprising and meaningful way.
Director Fernando Eimbcke combines a nostalgic black-and-white aesthetic with the immediacy of youth in Flies, which largely assumes Cristian's innocent point-of-view as he tries to make sense of his mother's illness. Often dismissed as a nuisance, he finds solace in imagination and play. Whereas Olga enjoys the predictability and slow pace of Sudoku, Cristian manages his rising anxiety by combatting monsters in a two-bit arcade game reminiscent of Space Invaders.
Olga and Cristian's friendship proves age is but a number - Flies is a testament to finding solace in life's tedium and triumphs through genuine human connection.
- Madison Marshall